Is the UEFA Nations League a Glorified Friendlies?

[Sterbens]

UEFA nations league is just useless honestly. Dosent have much meaning and while the players should be resting from a big season they are put to playing some stupid matches and just teasing them. Just a stupid move by FIFA to make this tournament

It was true, this would be very useless when the players who should have been focused on practicing more and trying to hone all the skills they had instead had to play matches that were not really that important. The players are no longer players who are new to football that must be met with the title of a friendly match. Because the fact is that later on in the field, they will certainly show each other's aggressiveness.

[wxa7115]

Just some filler matches before the big leagues, I guess, and also people want to see these guys play very often so profit-wise, UEFA is very smart in doing this games before the World Cup. He has the right to complain, but he signed a contract as a football player, and what do football players do to get paid right? If he doesn't wanna play on these 'filler' cups, perhaps he should renegotiate his contract to not include these games for his role as a player for these clubs.

I think there is a possibility this is something which will be included in new contracts during the next decade, after all even if we know that athletes get paid to perform, at the same time anyone which has exercised seriously knows that rest is very important as well in order to protect yourself from injury and to recover your stamina.

Many of the players which are on the best clubs play between 60 to 75 matches per year, so it is natural they are not really that excited to play a bunch of matches which do not mean anything to anyone.

[minime0105]

I think that De Bruyne is right and wrong at the same time.
The greedy bureaucrats at UEFA want the national teams to play more matches, because more matches means more money for UEFA.
The whole point of the UEFA Nations League is to give a chance for the weaker teams to win a spot at the European Cup.
The big teams will qualify for the Euro Cup anyway (via the Euro Cup qualifications), so this tournament is a chance for them to try out some young and unexperienced players. I don't understand people like Roberto Martinez, who is using his big stars like De Bruyne in the Naitons League, De Bruyine needs a break after a long season, Martinez could let some young players play.
The Nations League matches are important for the weak national teams, but not important for the big national teams, so De Bruyne is wrong about those games being friendlies.

Funny how one can be right and wrong at the same time haha, truth De Bruyne as a player knows the importance of the UEFA nations league that FIFA initiated, I do not think the matches are played to make more money rather I see it as a chance given to smaller team's to have chances of qualifying for the big competition EURO. If De Bruyne needs a break he can go sort it out with his coach I don't think he did a good thing by pointing hands-on UEFA on the reasons nations league is been played.

[LTU_btc]

I can't give straight answer to this question, but probably more yes than no. Remember what was said when Nations League was introduced - main goal of it is to replace boring international friendly games and make it more competitive. So, in general, yeah, it's just more competetive friendly games.
It's enough to check results in Nations League, especially in League A where strongest teams play. There is so many upsets, we barely can see such results in EURO or World Cup qualifiers, when games really matters.

[wxa7115]

I can't give straight answer to this question, but probably more yes than no. Remember what was said when Nations League was introduced - main goal of it is to replace boring international friendly games and make it more competitive. So, in general, yeah, it's just more competetive friendly games.
It's enough to check results in Nations League, especially in League A where strongest teams play. There is so many upsets, we barely can see such results in EURO or World Cup qualifiers, when games really matters.

Which unfortunately means that the games do not matter at all, and even if the organizers want to give it a more intense vibe, if the players are not felling it and they do not care about the result then the games will resemble nothing else but a friendly match.

Besides the moment they choose to do this could not be more inconvenient, as the local leagues of most European Leagues ended just weeks ago and the players were looking forward to their vacations and instead they are playing a bunch of games no one really cares about.

[Ondekinecakabilirim]

Kevin De Bruyne is so right. He played a grueling match schedule in the English League for an entire season. He played in important matches in the Champions League. He played in the European and World Cup qualifying matches for his national team. It's not an easy match schedule. There's already a busy schedule. He is so right in his statement. I think that such an intense match schedule affects the players mentally negatively.

[nullama]

I agree with that statement.

And actually it's basically the whole point of the UEFA Nations League:

The competition largely replaces the international friendly matches previously played on the FIFA International Match Calendar with more competitive matches.

It's a bit better to have a tournament around friendly matches really. But that's it.

It doesn't really compare to the world cup to be honest, it's like night and day. The UEFA Nations league is just friendly matches organized together into a tournament.

[wxa7115]

Kevin De Bruyne is so right. He played a grueling match schedule in the English League for an entire season. He played in important matches in the Champions League. He played in the European and World Cup qualifying matches for his national team. It's not an easy match schedule. There's already a busy schedule. He is so right in his statement. I think that such an intense match schedule affects the players mentally negatively.

We must remember that the federation of each country is also a private organization which wants to make money for themselves, so they want to make more money with those friendly matches and they are trying to give it such a format so they can get more money out of them.

But at the end regardless of what they do if the players are not interested at paying at their full capacity and the fans do not care about it, then regardless of their efforts they will fail to create any excitement over those games.

[Distraction]

The Nations League has seemed to be really a ''glorified friendlies'' so far. Because we have seen so many teams that we can call big ones performing very badly against even their weaker opponents. For example, England's latest match against Hungary in their home stadium was a disaster. Did you think even for once like they could lose the match by a huge score gap like this one? I guess the majority of people didn't expect such score at the end. Taking this into account I can say that nearly all of this kind of teams don't care about the Nations League.

[Zilon]

I am think the essence of the UEFA Nations league is to keep players busy ahead of the world cup. Kelvin De Bruyne might not get what he was expecting maybe not compared to what he is used to in the premier league. If it was possible he could opt out and get some rest while he waits for next season and the anticipated world cup. I just feel he is been careful to avoid injuries.

[MonsterV]

England's performance is a great example of how seriously people take such matches. And that answer isn't too serious. They are basically just glorified practice matches. Nothing more and nothing less. World champions will be remembered for years to come, but do you really think that in 10 years people will still know who won the Nations League in 2023? That doesn't interest anyone. I think most people don't even know who won the last edition.

[LUCKMCFLY]

The friendly or glorification matches as he describes them are just that, 3 games, but we must take into account that some players are tired and I think it is an infallible option to rest, besides the World Cup is very close and they need to have a good rest to recharge your energies, if we take into account that in friendly matches many players have been injured to go to the World Cup, I would not risk it, it is football that has happened, in many teams I have seen how some of their stars end up with split ankles.